


pretend it doesn't hurt

by Anonymous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, BPD, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lance has borderline personality disorder but I haven’t mentioned it explicitly, Langst, M/M, Self Harm, This isn’t even a fic it’s a bunch of headcannons strung together, i larb my kids, klance if u squint - Freeform, not explicitly mentioned), pining Keith is seen, trigger warning for suicidal thought (again, well not really but yknow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-16 01:10:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13625385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Keith watches as he puts his head in his hands, slim fingers covering both of his eyes. His shoulders seem to move inwards, as if a heavy weight is above him.Keith has witnessed a million of Lance’s mood swings but he has never seen Lance like this.Or; Lance is in a bad state of mind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi im back. there’s some sensitive topics in here, though i don’t mention anything in graphic detail. i basically vent through lance. if that isn’t your cup of tea then sorry. i wrote and edited this in maybe a 2 hour time period because I’m slow. It’s not even good but enjoy!

Hunk notices first.

He and Lance are late for dinner at Allura’s house. They practically throw themselves into Hunk’s faded-yellow truck, Lance scrambling to zip up his hoodie and balance the homemade cookies he’s holding for Hunk at the same time.

They chatter idly about anything before Lace begins retelling how one of the kids in his class got a glue cap stuck up his nose and they had to call the paramedics. Lance giggles, “I felt bad for the little munchkin, I really did, but his nostril was stretched so big; every time I looked at him I had to hold in a laugh, in case the other kids heard. Mrs. Toroda was not impressed,” he recalled with mirth.

Hunk can hear the natural teacher in him when he talks about the kids so fondly. He’s excited for Lance to move beyond being a teaching assistant and handle his own class. Hunk knows it’s a long road, but he also knows that his best friend can do anything he sets his mind to.

Hunk laughs infectiously. “Yeah buddy. Hey, remember when Pidge got that piece of pepperoni stuck up her nose in like, sophomore year?”

“Yes!” Lance nods exuberantly. “That’s exactly why it was so funny! She said it was spicy!” Lance giggles at the memory.

They’re almost at Allura’s house by then, and Hunk is mid-story when he stops. “Lance, your seatbelts unbuckled,” Hunk informs. He wouldn’t have thought it odd - Lance had always been forgetful - if Lance hadn’t stilled so suddenly.

“Oh, uh. Whoops. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on tight.” Lance fumbles for the belt and clips it.

“Too right man.” Hunk says. He jumps back into his story but his eyes wander from the road and to his friend’s face too often.

-

Pidge can feel when Lance is upset. She calls it her sisterly instinct, as she can also predict when Matt is feeling down on his luck.

The thing that bothers Pidge is that Lance is smiling anyways.

They’re at the library. Keith and Lance bicker without any real malice on who did better in their last exam.

Keith says something arrogant to which Lance says something equally self-absorbed, but it falls flat. Pidge can hear the lack of confidence behind it. It rubs her the wrong way.

“Lance definitely did better than you, Keith.” Pidge argues. “After all, he studied with me.” Keith scowls whilst Lance looks at her completely nonplussed. He tugs down a dark blue sleeve, looking lost and tired for a fraction of a second. Then, without any indicator that he’d even thought otherwise before, a smug grin spreads across his face.

“Stick it, Keith! If Pidge thinks so then I must have done better. She’s way smarter than you!”

“Hey - she’s smarter than you too, dumbass.” Keith fires back.

Something about Lance’s face says that he’s all too aware of this.

-

It might take Keith longer than he’d care to admit, but he knows there’s something wrong with Lance: he doesn’t rise to the bait half as much as he did when they were younger. At first Keith assumes this is because they’re closer now. His friendship with Lance wasn’t always a happy one, but they’d grown from it, learned when to leave it alone. In honesty, Lance was Keith’s closest friend, and although he doesn’t mind their ‘rivalry’, he prefers when they get along.

So, when he watches Lance from the kitchen of his and Shiro’s shared apartment, he is pissed at himself. Indescribably and irrevocably pissed at himself.

Lance is sat in front of the TV, the credits for some awful rom-com he’d forced Keith to endure projecting lines of color up and down his face. Lance is frowning down at his hands, eyebrows pulled tightly together. There’s a blanket tangled up in his long legs. Keith watches as he puts his head in his hands, slim fingers covering both of his eyes. His shoulders seem to move inwards, as if a heavy weight is above him.

Keith has witnessed a million of Lance’s mood swings but he has never seen Lance like _this_.

He approaches with smothered footfalls. Lance doesn’t know Keith is back in the room until he sits down and places a hand gently on his arm. Lance jumps in surprise, looking up at him through watery eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Keith says, worried. He hopes the worry is clearer than the frustration.

This prompt fat tears from the younger boy, they work their way down his face and pool at his chin. He turns his face out of Keith’s sight. “Lance,” Keith says softly, in a way he didn’t know he could, “C’mere,” he says, pulling on his arm. Lance’s whole face scrunches up as he shoves himself into Keith’s outstretched arms.

“‘M sorry,” Lance chokes out. Keith squeezes Lance in the hopes of steadying him, grounding him, rubbing what he hopes is soothing circles into his trembling back with one hand.

“What’s wrong?” he repeats. They’re squashed together, Keith’s words come out against Lance’s neck, warm. A tear falls, then another. Sat like this, Keith breathes in Lance’s usual fragrance of cress and vanilla and something sweet buried underneath. Under different circumstances, he would savor being this close.

“Please Lance, just tell me.”

“I’m overreacting,”

“You’re not. Whatever it is, you’re not.”

There’s a silence. Keith cards a hand absentmindedly through Lance’s soft hair. Lance breathes in deeply and works his arms tighter around Keith’s waist. Keith’s chest aches in response.

“I just feel... overwhelmed lately.” Lance admits. “With school and my teaching assistant stuff and,” he gasps, “-and I just keep letting people down all the time.

“My grades are slipping... the teachers at the elementary keep laughing at me... I know I disappoint you all when I don’t come to games night because I’m just _always_ busy trying to balance everything.” Each sentence is broken up by distressed sobs.

Keith pulls away to look up into Lance’s glimmering blue eyes. He brings a hand up to wipe away any tears he can see before holding his face firmly. “You don’t let me down.” he says truthfully. Lance’s face twists into a frown. He starts to say something but Keith puts both of his hands on Lance’s shoulders. They’re shaking.

“I mean it Lance. You’ve never let me down.” Keith smiles at him fondly, as if to assure him.

Lance returns it shakily. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

-

Lance stayed the night, Shiro realizes. He came in late from the night shift at the hospital and failed to see Lance’s shoes by the stairs. Usually, he’d know if Lance slept over because he’d be on the couch, snoring. Shiro wonders if they’ve finally shacked up like the love-sick idiots they are.

When Lance sheepishly emerges from Keith’s room to Shiro making breakfast, he grimaces. “Shiro, my man.”

Shiro’s eyebrows rise and he sports an impish smirk. “Lance,” he greets. He takes a long look at his friends face. His eyes are red, his face still gleaming with water. Shiro brushes it off, figures Lance had gotten face wash in his eyes.

  
Lance frowns. “Didn’t you have the night shift? You must be exhausted. I can make breakfast, if you want.”

Shiro shakes his head, a welcoming smile on his face. “How about we meet in the middle and both make breakfast? We can invite the others.”

Lance smiles. “Cool, you message ‘Lura and I’ll text Pidge and Hunk?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They make breakfast in comfortable silence. Shiro starts chopping some peppers and Lance cuts up the bacon. When Lance finishes he looks to Shiro for guidance.

“You wanna start on the eggs?” Shiro suggests.

Lance hums in agreement. “Do you have a jug or something?”

“Yeah, top shelf, second cupboard from the fridge.”

Shiro watches Lance reach up for the jug. He knows it’s hard to reach when it’s at the back.

Lance pushes up on his toes and stretches out his arm-

Shiro can’t believe his eyes. His stomach drops; Lance’s sleeve falls down his arm. Not far, but enough to see red, angry lines criss-crossing his wrist. They marr his tan skin shamelessly.

Lance falls back, grinning with accomplishment until he meets Shiro’s shocked face. He gives Shiro a bemused smile. “What, is there something on my face?” he says.

The air between them is stifling. Shiro sets the knife down on the cutting board. The silence stretches on too long. Lance’s expression morphs into one of nervousness. “What is it?”

“Lance... your arm.”

As if some spell has been broken, Lance is no longer grinning.


	2. Chapter 2

  
Keith is woken by the sounds of pots and pans and loud, cheerful voices in the kitchen. He glances at where Lance had been the night before, gracing a hand across the bedsheets. They’re still warm.

He gets up slowly, stretching, trying to listen into whatever’s being said in the kitchen. There’s too many walls between them for him to follow or understand the conversation. He can hear Shiro’s dulcet tones and Lance’s too-enthusiastic-for-this-early-in-the-morning babble.

For as long as Keith has known him, Lance fills every inch of time with noise, whether that means playing music too loudly or speaking for hours on end about anything he can think of.

Keith frowns, remembering how quiet Lance has been lately. Last night had been the final piece of the puzzle; Lance was seriously upset over something, something he wasn’t willing to share with them. Keith rolled it over in his head as he walks towards the kitchen. _Willing may not be the correct term_ , he thinks. Lance has always been hesitant to share his troubles or woes with his friends, despite how supporting and caring they have all proven to be, at least as far as Keith sees it.

He stops in the doorway of the kitchen about to greet them when he realizes an uncomfortable silence has settled. Lance is looking at Shiro so intensely it immediately puts Keith on edge.

“Shiro, you can’t tell anyone.” Lance says, the edges of his voice strung tight with pleading. From where Keith is stood, he can see Lance’s eyes fill with tears.

“Tell anyone what?” says Keith suddenly, allerting the two of them of his presence. Lance flinches imperceptibly at his appearance. His face lights up with a huge fake smile but Shiro continues frowning.

“Nothing,” he says. It’s strained, both Shiro and Keith can tell. Keith looks to Shiro with narrowed eyes.

“Is this about last night? Lance, you don’t have to be embarrassed about being stressed.” Keith says, moving to put his hand on the tall boy’s shoulder. “We’ve all been there.”

“Not quite,” Shiro says, at the same time Lance shouts, “Yes! I’m just stressed,”

Lance is starting to sound desperate. His hands shake uncontrollably. He bunches them up into fists until his knuckles turn white and gives it one last try.

“Shiro, please.” he says.

Shiro is completely stricken, doesn’t say a word for so long Keith feels like time has stopped. Keith looks long and hard at his brother, trying to make sense of whatever’s been said, whatever could’ve happen to stop them both at an impasse like this.

“Lance...” Shiro says finally. “I’m just not in the position to hide this for you. If I think you’re doing something that is endangering to yourself or others-“

“I would never-“ Lance cuts himself off. He looks at Keith. Keith takes his hand off Lance’s shoulder, shocked.

“What?” Keith says. “What’s he talking about?”

Lance is freely crying now, pulling his arms in even tighter around himself.

The kitchen smells like freshly chopped vegetables and cooking oil. Juniper flows in gently through the open window on a warm summers breeze. There’s a pan on the stove and all the ingredients for Shiro’s infamous omelettes are prepared, waiting on the side.

“Lance, just tell me.” Keith says gently.

Impossibly, Lance becomes the smallest person in the room. “You’ll be angry.” he says.

Keith frowns at him. “I’m sure I won’t. I wasn’t angry when you were upset last night. This isn’t any different. I’m your friend Lance, you can trust me.”

Lance, slowly, ever so slowly, brings his arms out from around himself. He looks anywhere but at Keith’s face, offering one to him.

Like an itch, worry and despair lick at his skin. He’s filled with a sense of horrifying clarity. Keith looks to Shiro again, pleading with his eyes. _Say it isn’t what I think it is, that Lance wouldn’t..._ Shiro shakes his head with solemn eyes.

Keith takes Lance’s arm as if it’s something fragile. Then, he pulls up his sleeve.

-

  
Shiro does not end up making omelettes.

“Don’t leave him alone.” Shiro says. Hunk nods.

Hunk and Pidge take Lance home, who cannot be calmed from his hysterical state.

-

Allura has seen Keith cry a handful of times. When he moved in with Shiro, he cried for hours. Soft, mewling things similar to when he’d broke his leg, similar to when Shiro lost his arm.

“I d-didn’t know,” Keith cries, “he’s my- my b-best friend and I d-didn’t know,” he practically wails. Shiro rubs a calming hand up and down his shoulders., reassuring him that it was going to be okay. Lance was going to be fine. 

Allura cries. She puts all the food into Tupperware, no one having an appetite for breakfast after the revelation they’ve made. She wipes down the counters and washes the knives and the cutting board and puts the jug back on the top shelf. She cries.

Keith is still sobbing, reduced to big fat tears and stuttering breaths. He’s leaning fully into Shiro’s side. Shiro has his eyes closed, his brow crinkled in stress.

Allura sits down next to Keith, wrapping her arm around his shoulder, her arm snug against her boyfriends. Their eyes meet over Keith’s head. Allura can see Shiro’s heartbreak, knowing she looks the same.

-

Pidge is angry. Pidge is so so angry she can’t quite hold it in and by the time they’re home and Lance is in bed she is _at ends_ with Hunk.

“You’re really not helping him out like this.” Hunk says quietly.

“Can you blame me? We’re supposed to know him better than anyone! He’s- he’s hurting and we didn’t do anything!” she shouts. Her ginger hair surrounds her head in a fluffy halo. She looks anything but heavenly.

Hunk glares at her. “We didn’t know, Pidge. We can’t blame ourselves.”

Pidge can tell he’s trying to temper her and she knows she should back down but she can’t.

“Don’t give me that! He’s been down for weeks, maybe even months! How long has this been happening while I’ve been wrapped up in stupid fucking ones and zeros?” she says scathingly, tugging a rough hand through her knotted hair. Her vision is dotted with clouds of black. Overwhelmed, she throws herself down into the nearest chair.

Her breathing quickens. Hunk moves to her side but she holds up a hand. “I’m fine,” she assures him. She breathes in and holds it. Lets it go and does it again.

The dizziness and swell of heartache retreats.

“I just, don’t understand. What happened?” she murmurs tiredly, head on top of both arms.

Hunk visibly deliberates. “Maybe he’s depressed.”

Pidge looks at him in disbelief. “Lance isn’t depressed.”

“You don’t know for certain.”

“You’re right, I don’t. I just... he’s so happy, you know? He’s energetic and loving and maybe he’s too clingy and self-deprecating but he’s never had any episodes. Don’t depressed people stay in bed all day? Lance never has a moment to himself. He’s always on his feet working- or studying.” Pidge says.

“Maybe it’s just different?” Hunk says. Pidge is unappeased. “Pidge - he hid this from us like it was nothing. Who’s to say he isn’t hiding anything else?”

Pidge stares at her hands, at her chipped nails and ragged cuticles. “What did Shiro say to you?” she wonders. Upon discovering a sobbing, bare-armed Lance and basically unresponsive Keith, Lance had begged her to take him home. They’d waited in the car.

“Just, you know, doctor words. ‘It looks like he’s been hurting himself, keep an eye on him’.” Hunk says. His words are thick. “Speaking of, we should check on him.”

“You do it. I’ll call Shiro, see how they’re all doing...” Pidge says, an uncomfortable twist in her gut. She was determined to fix this, to stop fucking up, to be there for her friend, she just didn’t know how.

-

Midday-sun streams in through Lance’s bedroom window. It lays across Lance’s face, his soft hair splayed around him. Hunk holds Lance’s hand in his darker one, studying him.

Hunk has carried Lance injured to the emergency room. Hunk has pulled up his pants when he’s too drunk to do it himself and rubbed his back while he’s sick. Hunk has watched Lance scream in happiness and Hunk has watched Lance hold in a laugh and Hunk has watched Lance fumble over his words.

His sleeves are rolled back down. Hunk has also watched him debate breakfast, skip breakfast altogether, cry over silly things like kittens, ripped paper, spilled noodles. He’s seen Lance vulnerable at three in the morning because he couldn’t sleep and he’s seen Lance sick with nerves.

Hunk has seen all these things and never has he felt so blind.

He holds Lance’s hand and he cries.

-

* * *

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

  
The next day, Hunk says, “I love you, Lance,” over a plate of French toast.

Lance doesn’t say it back. Not because he doesn’t love Hunk, but because he _can’t_ love Hunk, not really. Hunk who has supported him through so much, Hunk with his huge heart and sunshine smiles.

How could a monster like Lance pretend to know what love is?

Lance just stares at Hunk with his tired eyes and stays silent. A flicker of hurt passes between them. Lance pretends it doesn’t.

-

Lance hasn’t said much since they found out. Hunk chitters idly about what cupcakes he’s making today and for which client and for what occasion. Lance smiles along with eyes that aren’t quite seeing as they pull out the driveway.

Hunk stops the car, reaches over Lance and does up his seatbelt.

Lance’s cheeks flush red and he looks anywhere but at Hunk.

“It’s okay, buddy.” Hunk says.

Lance cries all the way to the grocery store but he smiles, too.

-

When Keith opens the door he is not expecting Lance McClain. He looks better than the day before. His skin is clearer and shining, most likely to a forced self-care session from Hunk, and he’s wearing his green jacket. He doesn’t really feel it as he throws himself at Lance, twisting both arms around him and bringing the blue eyed boy as close to him as possible. He buries his face in Lance’s neck and breathes him in, relief washing over him.

“Lance,” he says, muffled against tan skin.

Lance brings a hand up cautiously before settling it in Keith’s hair, wrapping the other around his waist. Keith squeezes him.

“I’m sorry.” Keith says.

Lance’s hand stills in his hair. He clears his throat. “‘S not your fault,” Lance says.

-

Lance feels like he’s choking. He knows that they’re trying.

But sometimes “I love you,” feels like a hand around his throat.

-

Pidge asks him, “how you feeling?” everyday like it’s the weather.

“Fine.”

“Stop lying.”

“Then stop asking,” he snarls. Pidge stands up, looks down at him. He thinks, _this is it. I’ve finally pushed her way oh my god I’m so stupid-_

“Is it really so hard to tell me the truth? Lance, I care about you. I just want you to be happy. I don’t care if you think it’s stupid, or not worth talking about, I want to know.”

“I don’t want to burden you with it,”

“You’re not.” Pidge says shortly, “It’s not a burden _because_ I want to know. If anything, you’re doing me a favor.” she says, giving him a smirk that definitely says she knows she’s won.

His hands fiddle with the zip on his jacket. “...It’s just this- this feeling of anger.” he admits slowly, testing the words in his mouth.

“Anger?” Pidge says. Lance winches. “I’m not judging you,” she assures him. “I just don’t understand.”

“Neither do I, most of the time. I’m just- _God_ , Pidge, I’m so angry all the time. At you guys, at myself, at everyone.”

When Pidge doesn’t reply, he slumps into himself. Pidge pushes him to move over with her pointy hip, half sitting on him as he shifts to make room for her.

“That’s okay, Lance, you’re allowed to feel angry.”

“You don’t get it,” he says, but it’s not cold, just exasperated. “It’s in everything I do. Pidge, I hate it. I hate myself for it,” he admits heatedly, the back of his throat burning, “sometimes I think I’d rather be dead than be so-“ he cuts himself off, closing his eyes. He brings his hands to his face and huffs dejectedly.

A tiny hand creeps down his arm to hold his wrist. It’s tender, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Okay.” Pidge says, determined. “We can do this, Lance. We can do this together.”

-

Things don’t get better immediately. In fact, it takes a long, long time.

Lance gets diagnosed and as much as that supposed to make it easier it makes everything so much harder. His friends are so loving, so supportive and some days that makes Lance sick to his stomach.

A personality disorder.

It doesn’t help because something is detrimentally wrong with him, something so deep in his core that he has to go to therapy and take medication. Therapy sucks because he has to talk about feelings he buried under layers of shame years ago, things he wishes didn’t happen and hates remembering more. Medication sucks because it tastes gross; every morning one of them will ask if he’s taken them and that tastes even worse.

He says this all to Hunk one night, staring up at their living room ceiling. He can’t sleep and Hunk says he also can’t sleep.

Hunk’s a liar who keeps dozing off next to him.

“Yeah, something went wrong,” Hunk says quietly, turning to stare at Lance through the semi-darkness. “But now that we know what it is, we can fix it.”

There’s a long silence.

“I love you, Hunk. Sorry I haven’t been a very good best friend.”

Hunk smiles like he just won the lottery. “You’ve been great dude, it’s in the title. _Best_ friend.”

-

Lance buckles his seatbelt as soon as he gets in the car. His bare arms shine brighter than any star.

He turns in his seat to smile at all his friends piled in the back of the minivan, Hunk behind the wheel. Allura wears a sun hat so big that it keeps hitting Shiro in the face. Pidge and Matt squabble over which sunscreen does the best job and what day will be the best for wake-boarding, Pidge wondering aloud if they can make an algorithm to help decide.

Keith has his hair pinned back. He fixes his violet eyes on Lance with a soft look, like he’s been waiting for him. “Ready?” he asks.  
  
Lance nods excitedly.

“I’m ready. Let’s go!”

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kind comments and kudos and all that jazz. I put something super embarrassing and personal but so many of you left nice comments about it so thank you very 
> 
> If you’re hurting, please tell someone. It doesn’t have to be anyone close to you, you’ll find basically everyone wants to help out when they can


End file.
